Rapper Jayceon “The Game” Taylor was at a mall in Greensboro, North Carolina, when security guards told one of his entourage to stop filming without permission. He refused. The security guards called police. The Game refused to leave, and a crowd gathered to support him. The police dispersed the crowd with pepper spray and arrested The Game for disorderly conduct, trespass, and communicating threats. The Game produced a video of the incident, with footage of what they described as “The Game being wrongfully arrested and brutalized by the Police in North Carolina.” The footage appeared on YouTube, and an ad for the video appeared on stopsnitchinstoplyin.com. The police officers sued The Game for slander and libel based on the DVD ad and his post-bail statement to the press:
They really kicked our (censored) … I gotta bring up a case against the Guilford Police Department. I gotta do it, man. It’s unfair. Their behavior’s unfair.
The trial court dismissed some of the officers’ slander and libel claims. The officers appeal, but it was dismissed because there was no final order. The officers argued that the trial court’s order should be reviewed immediately because it might lead to inconsistent verdicts. The court was unconvinced, noting that the officers had failed to show that they would be prejudiced by the possibility of inconsistent verdicts in the two separate proceedings.
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